Employee training pays off

01/08/2002
Business Weekly: Sara Yang

Just "doing the job" isn't enough anymore. Finding ways to do it better is a basic expectation of management towards employees. Thus, teaching, mentoring, and staff development has become a fundamentally important management skill. In fact, the desire and ability to learn, grow and develop has become a required competency for employees in today's changing business climate.

However, training should not be done just for the sake of training. The best companies spend money on training with a specific, practical result in mind: better products, better service, better financial results. If a training programme isn't helping to achieve this end, the programme should be revised or eliminated. Thus, training should be seen as a means to achieve certain objectives and not an end in itself.

The challenge for Human Resources (HR) and line managers, then, is how to develop and deliver high impact training programmes to achieve specific business goals. At the same time, a positive learning environment must be established to directly effect employees' satisfaction and productivity. Watson Wyatt research shows that the most successful companies expect their employees to "own" their professional growth. Employees generally want to contribute and will rise to a challenge. In addition, the most successful training programmes focus their training efforts on "customer-oriented learning" - training that helps a company better understand the needs of its customers. The following is a summary of best practices in providing high-impact training programmes to employees.

Align training and development programmes with business strategies.

There is no greater need than to gain a broad view of company strategy and no greater skill than adapting current practices to future needs. Training and development programmes should be closely aligned to business strategies and address not only short-term needs but also prepare the workforce for the future. If done well, this will translate into increased employee commitment and a set of transferable skills.

Focus the training efforts.

The number of trainable skills in a company is nearly limitless. The key then, is how you focus on the particular skills you need. To start, don't get too complicated: start by simply focusing on what the employee needs to do better in his or her current position and expand to possible future roles later.

Presume a training need exists.

When you hire, assume that there will be some skills the employee already has (minimum requirements), but others which they will develop on the job (training expectations). It is important to co-ordinate these criteria with HR and also to be specific with new staff about your expectations regarding their training and development.

Establish a buddy system.

Create the expectation that employees will mentor and train each other. Executed properly, a buddy system will be very helpful in terms of improving both employee skills and satisfaction levels.

*Partner with HR. Ask them to arrange on-site training related to individual or work group tasks. These may include such "soft skills" as communication and team building, which will nearly always pay dividends.

Foster an attitude in management that the company can improve itself from within.

The most successful companies see themselves as a "learning organization" - one that is continually striving to better itself. This works best if every employee understands how bettering themselves improves the bottom line results, and in the end will also bring material rewards to employees.

Set high learning expectations.

The "learning organization" attitude should extend to the classroom itself. Trainers, whether internal or outsourced, should establish a learning environment which provides not only learning, but applications to business results. Then, these concepts should be evaluated within a bonus system: every performance review should include specific and measurable learning goals.

The author is a senior consultant at Watson Wyatt, specializing in organizational change and effectiveness.